English in India

chillibreeze writer — Rosemary George

The English Language is perhaps one of the more useful things that India’s colonial history has left behind. With the departure of the British after independence, the English language has remained the most palpable evidence of India’s colonial past. Previously utilized and accessed only by the elite minority, English now stands as the most widely spoken language in India, after Hindi. Despite being a second language, its dominance has grown over the years, and it has come to occupy the position of an accepted language in the fields of business and education. In fact, even though only 4% of the Indian population use English regularly, India still has the third largest English-speaking population in the world, after the USA and the UK, and this number is only slated to increase.

It is not surprising therefore, that India possesses a vast pool of talent in the field of English. Indian writing in English is now at its fertile peak, and has reached an enviable level of maturity, considering the language is only a little more than a century old in India. Indian writers of fiction like Arundhati Roy, Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh and Vikram Seth are part of the new generation of writing talent that is taking over the world. Arundhati Roy and Salman Rushdie won the Booker Prize for their novels ‘The God of Small Things’ and Midnight’s Children’ respectively. Githa Hariharan was awarded the Commonwealth prize for her book ‘The Thousand Faces of the Night’ in 1993. Anita Desai’s most recent novel, Fasting, Feasting was a finalist for the 1999 Booker Prize. Vikram Seth is credited with having written the longest single volume English language novel, and Raj Kamal Jha’s first novel ‘The Blue Bedspread’ commanded the largest advance ever paid to a first time Indian writer. With many more authors bringing out new books, the richness and abundance of Indian literature in English is increasing at breakneck speed.

The non-fiction realm has an equally impressive array of writers, who write on topics as diverse as business, politics, sport and lifestyle. Internationally recognized management thinkers like CK Prahalad, the late Sumantra Ghoshal, and Pradip Khandwala have written extensively on corporate strategy. Regular newspaper columnists like Shekhar Gupta, Kuldip Nayar and Saeed Naqvi are known for their penetrating political commentaries. Shobha De, a known fashion and lifestyle columnist was also the first editor of Stardust and Society magazines, and has also published seven novels. Even Indian movies in English have established a stronghold. Starting with ‘English August', based on Upamanyu Chatterjee’s novel of the same name, to Gurinder Chadha’s ‘Bend it like Beckham’ and Mira Nair’s ‘Monsoon Wedding’, Indian Cinema in English is reaching new comfort levels with both audiences and filmmakers alike.

With a substantial and steady yield of written material in English, the popularity and acceptance of the language is increasing greatly. India currently publishes more than 8000 English dailies (Registrar of Newspapers for India, March 2004) reaching 142 million people, at a growth rate of 23.21 percent compared to the previous year. This figure is not including the hundreds of magazines and periodicals that are published each year.

One of the pivotal factors contributing to India’s escalating writing potential is its education system. Most private schools and colleges are run by missionaries and other Christian organizations. English is taught as the first language, and the standards set out for written and spoken English are very high. St Stephens college in Delhi takes credit for producing so many writers, that the term ‘The Stephanian Novel’ has come into being. Eminent writers like Amitav Ghosh, Vikram Seth and Shashi Tharoor are all products of this institution. The English normally taught in India follows British spelling and pronunciation. However, with the new penetration of American culture and market demands, American English is steadily establishing itself as an accepted form.

The immense talent available in India in the fields of writing and reading in English is being recognized by the west, and used to their advantage. A number of firms are now looking to India to outsource not just software and IT projects, but also writing work. The outsourced publishing services business has a turnover of over Rs 1,000 crore annually in India.
A recent example would be the US based technology and business magazine Business 2.0, which outsourced a section of its August issue to Indian editors. The tremendous cost-advantage combined with the assurance of good quality work made the move an intelligent one for Business 2.0. Financial news service Reuters also decided to move editorial jobs from US and Europe to India in August earlier this year.

The time advantage makes it possible for web sites to keep news updates fresh. For example, technology news portal CNET gets work done from India for research reports and news alerts, taking advantage of the time zone and keeping its news site fresh from 6 am onwards.
US-based TechBooks, whose clients include Cambridge University Press, Prentice Hall, Law Writer, and Net Library, does most of its outsourcing work from Delhi. Other publishing houses like Thomson Press, Macmillan, Integra and Newgen Imaging also outsource successfully to India. In fact, outsourcing of content and all other services in the publishing industry is pegged at $2.5 billion globally.

The most interesting development with the preference for Indian writing work perhaps, is the possibility of outsourcing journalism. Although actual reporting can only be done at the parent locations, other writing and editing services can most certainly be outsourced to India, at high levels of quality. India’s wealth of superior institutes and colleges for journalism, like the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai, Mudra Institute of Communication, Ahmedabad and Jamia Millia, Delhi, produce talented and trained media professionals. Indian journalists are also being recognized abroad for their work. Recently, the Gerald Loeb awards for 2004, an award given to business, financial and economic journalism was won by two Indian journalists - Manjeet Kripalani of the Business Week and Abhay Singh of Bloomberg News.

The abundance of India’s writing talent is undeniable, and using that talent to create original, innovative content would only be seen as a wise decision.

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Rosemary says,
" Besides music and poetry which are my first two loves, cinema also greatly excites me. My perfect day would have to involve a good book, a great movie and lots of chocolate!"

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